posted at 5:01 pm on August 1, 2013 by Allahpundit

Young adult drinkers’ alcoholic beverage preferences have changed dramatically over the past two decades. In the early 1990s, 71% of adults under age 30 said they drank beer most often; now it is 41% among that age group. There has been a much smaller decline in the percentage of 30- to 49-year-olds who say they drink beer the most, from 48% to 43%, with essentially no change in older drinkers’ beer preference.

Younger adults’ preferences have shifted toward both liquor and wine, but more so toward liquor, over the past two decades. Those between the ages of 30 and 49 have moved exclusively toward liquor. Older Americans now increasingly say they drink wine most and are less likely to say they drink liquor most…

Since the early 1990s, both whites and nonwhites have become less likely to choose beer as their favorite alcoholic drink. However, nonwhites have shown a greater shift than whites, down 19 points and nine points, respectively. Both racial groups’ preferences for wine have increased, with smaller gains in both groups’ preferences for liquor.

Millennials, who are more left-wing than the rest of the electorate on most policy matters, evidently prefer the European approach for alcohol consumption too.

The stereotype that men are beer-drinkers and women wine-drinkers is also amply confirmed, by the way, although interestingly that’s less true for men these days than it was 20 years ago and more true for women. In the early 90s, men preferred beer to wine 64/15. Now it’s 53/20. Twenty years ago, women preferred wine to beer, 43/29. Today it’s 52/20. Also interestingly, both then and now, women have preferred hard liquor slightly more than men did. Everything … okay, ladies?

My hunch when I saw the data was that the average price of wine must have dropped over time. I can’t find hard data to back that up after Googling, though; on the contrary, this Slate piece from 2011 noted that super-cheap wine grew less popular with Americans between the mid-90s and mid-00s. I don’t think it’s cost that’s driving this. I think it’s probably health reasons. The public’s undeniably more aware of the consequences of obesity than it was 20 years ago, and it’s also more aware of the virtues of a low-carb diet. Wine typically will get you drunk with fewer calories, fewer carbs, and maybe some side health benefits. The more health-conscious America gets, presumably the more wine will gain on beer as its beverage of choice. And then, someday when Mike Bloomberg’s president, both of them will be banned and replaced with sugar-free fruit juice. The golden age is nigh, my friends.

Wine vs. Beer (at least in terms of calories/carbs) are both pretty close because most calories come from the alcohol (although you might get more carbs from beer given the volume). Red wine may be healthier for you, but you get health benefits from hoppy microbrews too.

This shouldn’t surprise you since beer is consumed and marketed much more like wine than it ever has been. The huge variety, the microbrews etc. Beer basically is wine, culturally. And really…why choose?

Not surprised. While wine showed up in America already highly and blatantly diverse (red/white, dry/tart, etc.), beer is still largely thought of as Bud, Miller, Coors. Beer has a higher complexity barrier to entry. In my experience beer snobs are way more likely to ruin someone’s palate to craft beer (Here, try this. It’s called Arrogant Bastard, but it’s more of a mid-range ale for me.) than a wine snob, who knows it’s a gradual process before someone is drinking bombastic high-tannin red wines.

And women prefer hard liquor because that’s where you can best create drinks where you don’t taste the booze.

ConservativeLA pretty well nailed it. When I saw people drinking Zima I knew things were amiss. Then came all the fruit beers. I can drink just about any beer except those sweet ones and Pearl Light. And some of the local microbrews are interesting.

The wife and I definitely drink more wine than beer.
Higher alcohol content means drinking less volume which means fewer trips to the restroom – a factor that has gotten more critical in the last few years since I broke the 50 mark…..

Also, the beers we like are in the same price range, by volume, as the wines we drink – and lower alcohol content.

I don’t think so. The entire wine market has changed. Wine used to be perceived as a snobby upper class drink that people had to know lots about in order to purchase and enjoy. That has all changed. Mid-to-low-priced wines have now flooded the market and labeling is more often than not casual and fun with bright graphics. The selection of decent wine even in places like convenience and grocery stores has exploded.

In short, wine is way more accessible than it used to be and much less threatening.

The increase in men preferring it to beer is IMO just another example of the beta-fying of the American male (which bums me out even though I am a wine as well as a beer lover). Thanks a lot AP. ;)

I have to be in the mood for beer or wine, which is rare for me. For beer, it’s Sam Adams or nothing. The best wine I ever tasted was a white Virginia, so that’s where I’ll go for a wine. I drink domestic anyway, because so many Euro wines I have tried, even expensive ones, make me think of luke-warm gnat p*ss.

Don’t worry. A couple more years of this clown and his deluded libs and we’ll all be in same financial shape as cuba and the old USSR. Other than the ruling elite that lord over us we’ll all be drinking rot gut vodka and squeezings.

Of course, we’ll have windmill and solar power so we’ll be way ahead of the the soviet communists.

Of course the ruling elite have their daccaus on nantucket along with their own seperate but equal healthcare, pensions, taxes (or lack thereof)and their investment rules.

Here, try this. It’s called Arrogant Bastard, but it’s more of a mid-range ale for me.

Sgt Steve on August 1, 2013 at 5:15 PM

Ha!

Brought to you by the same food snobs who eat Cold Stone Creamery milk flavored snot laced with Nicaraguan pralines and drink Starbucks Mucho Grande Half-caf with a shot of pretentiousness, because plain old coffee and ice cream is for knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers.

Was there a crosstab that indicted that we all became far more dependent on all manners of drink in November 2008? Seriously, it’s proven that more people check out with booze in bad times. We will all be in rehab by 2016.

Why don’t we do the right thing by banning both of them, and ban the rest of the intoxicating potables.

Because alcohol is bad. It kills, and destroys families. Some say we tried that before, and it just led to rampant law breaking and crime, without stopping drinking. Well, you know what, it did cut drinking by a little bit, and if we had put in more law enforcment $ and forces, kind of like we are doing today with the drug war, with SWAT teams busting down doors in no-knock raids to find the insidious alcohol, we could have cut drinking by maybe a bit more. So lets amend the constitution again, and add drugs to the list of things prohibited by the feds, as then the feds would have an unquestionable constitutional mandate to engage in mass persecution and imprisonment of the drinkers an stoners. /narc http://disinfo.com/2012/10/matt-groffs-viral-drug-war-spending-chart/

Millennials, who are more left-wing than the rest of the electorate on most policy matters, evidently prefer the European approach for alcohol consumption too.

Beer is often portrayed in the media as a more redneck flyover country beverage. Unless it’s from a local micro brewery.

The stereotype that men are beer-drinkers and women wine-drinkers is also amply confirmed, by the way, although interestingly that’s less true for men these days than it was 20 years ago and more true for women.

I’m also wondering if women as a whole are drinking more than they did 20 years ago. Maybe, maybe not. But the behavior of women has changed a lot in the past 20-30 years, with women adopting more behavior that was traditionally associated with men.

My hunch when I saw the data was that the average price of wine must have dropped over time.

I don’t drink much wine anymore, but 20-30 years ago almost all of the better wines were imported. Domestic wines have improved dramatically in quality in the past 20-30 years, and they cost a lot less. Quality up, price down.

The public’s undeniably more aware of the consequences of obesity than it was 20 years ago, and it’s also more aware of the virtues of a low-carb diet.

Most wines are much lower in carbs than most beer.

And hard liquor, without sugary mixers, is the lowest of all.

One other reason.

Study after study has suggested that a glass or two of wine a day is good for you.

I support the local brew pubs too, Pikes Peak Brewery in Monument, CO is fantastic.

kirkill on August 1, 2013 at 5:30 PM

Even though that’s also local for me, and they have some good stuff, I still prefer Breckenridge Brewing (Avalanche), New Belgium Brewing (Ft Collins)(Fat Tire), and Bristol Brewing (Colorado Springs) (Laughing Lab).

Stone Brewery’s Arrogant Bastard is a beer made to be strong nearly to the point of being offensive. No lie, that’s what I got introduced to when I first got into craft beers. If it’s the first IPA/APA/strong beer you ever try, you’ll be highly put off. Now I love that stuff. But it was several years between.

My point was that craft beer fans who try to be evangelical about their love of craft beer have a bad habit of throwing their acolytes in the deep end. By comparison, in my experience, wine snobs consider the path from mild to full bodied wines to be part of the experience rather than the destination.

That may be part of the reason, but I don’t think it’s or the greatest reason.

Another is it’s an unintended consequence of the rise of the specialty beers and/or micros, which ever you want to call them. They’ve shown the public to just how bad the standard beers are. People never realized what they’ve been missing out on. This opened the door to going for variety.

The explosion of growth in the wine industry is a mirror, of a lagging nature, of the micro-brewer/specialty beer strategy both with niche marketing and the, relatively speaking, ease of market entry.

The thing is that while specialty/micro beer is a jump in price, whereas specialty/micro wine is much less so. Both can advertise their localness, but I think has an easier time with that for various reasons.

My hunch when I saw the data was that the average price of wine must have dropped over time.

My standard for judging low-cost wine is Fetzer Merlot. (I rarely drink it, but it’s popular and respected enough to be a good price barometer.) In 2000, it was $6 at its steepest discount. Now, still $6. I don’t think I need to argue to this audience that there’s been a bit of inflation — especially in other foodstuffs — during that period of time.

Everyone has their own taste preferences – which is why I don’t care for snobs of any type.
My wife and I drink more red wine (usually Ironstone Cab) than anything else, but she likes the fruity ones and I like the oaky ones – as well as tawney ports.
In beer, I like the ambers, my wife likes the porters and stouts (but can’t drink much of it).
For hard liquor, I like tequila, she likes vodka (Grey Goose or 3 Olives).
To each his or her own….

As an under-30 who greatly prefers beer over wine, I really think it’s a liquor thing. Between wine and beer the choice is easy, unless it’s a big fancy to-do I’ll choose beer. Throw whiskey into the mix, 7/10 I’ll choose whiskey.

Plus, cocktail bars are a big deal. Opening up all over the place, and at some of them you can get a ridiculous cocktail that some dude trained 15 years to learn how to make for the same price as a beer, or maybe a buck or two more.

Exclusive: Dozens of CIA operatives on the ground during Benghazi attack

Resist We Much on August 1, 2013 at 5:43 PM

The other half of that, given the full flaming skull treatment by Ace (quoting the CNN piece):

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”

Stone Brewery’s Arrogant Bastard is a beer made to be strong nearly to the point of being offensive.

Sgt Steve on August 1, 2013 at 5:44 PM

Went to a jazz club a few weeks ago and ordered for the first time a draft Stone IPA. Delicious. Only 7.9% alcohol. It’s $2 a bottle at the grocery store, but, on occasion, a nice treat. Otherwise, I drink Natural Light on ice. I’m not a snob.

Brought to you by the same food snobs who eat Cold Stone Creamery milk flavored snot laced with Nicaraguan pralines and drink Starbucks Mucho Grande Half-caf with a shot of pretentiousness, because plain old coffee and ice cream is for knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers.

CurtZHP on August 1, 2013 at 5:29 PM

Yep. Food snobs of any stripe annoy the hell out of me. There are some people I work with now and with whom I have worked in the past who are pretty aggressive in their veganism/vegetarianism. Fine, eat what you want. But quit pestering me to follow your diet or otherwise think I’m some kind of Neanderthal because I like and eat meat. I’ll eat what I want, thank you very much.

I’ve grown more fond of wine over beer in the past few years. I’m learning more and more about wine, and have found some great staples around the $6 mark (seriously–not swill; very good bottles can be found in this $6-8 range nowadays, esp. at Trader Joe’s).

I would say that I prefer reds over whites, but then I’d be called a racist (and possibly a communist sympathizer).

Beer snob here. I don’t really drink that often at all and hardly ever to the point of 20’s drunkeness, but i have a passionately love for quality beer. Beer is more like wine to me than Budweiser picked up from the convenience store.

That being said, I have European family members so I’ve always been around wine and learned it. Never been a fan of reds, but I do enjoy good wine from time to time. I don’t think that’s altered for me or grown in the last decade though, pretty well stayed the same on the beer:wine ratio.

And if it’s liquor, it better be bourbon or whiskey, otherwise I’ve got no taste for it at all.

Real beer/whiskeys or bourbons/white wines. Pretty well in that order for me.

Here in Pennsylvania, we’re still condemned to shopping at the state liquor store, because apparently the state can’t seem to figure out how to allow regular grocery stores to be able to sell wine without the stupid state liquor store union being involved.

In Colorado, I’ve found the best deals on everything at the Costco liquor stores – which are not really run by Costco, and don’t require a Costco membership to get in.
The McMannis Cab that I like is $8 there, but runs about $11 or $12 in regular liquor stores.
Same goes for beer and hard liquor. The only problem is they don’t have as wide a selection as most liqour stores.